Ford Darlington qualifying

DARRELL WALTRIP --66-- Route 66/Big Kmart Taurus
"We've been off a little
bit all day. Everytime I go out I gain, but we must not have gone out
enough. Man, we're sliding all over the place. This place is always slick,
it's so hot today and...

DARRELL WALTRIP --66-- Route 66/Big Kmart Taurus"We've been off a little
bit all day. Everytime I go out I gain, but we must not have gone out
enough. Man, we're sliding all over the place. This place is always slick,
it's so hot today and humid it's hard to get the car to grip and we had some
problems early on and didn't get to work on the car enough. I guess we'll
be OK. I don't know if that will make the top 36 or not, but we're in the
show and I guess that's all that matters."

RUSTY WALLACE --2-- Miller Lite Taurus "I knew going into Darlington it
was gonna be a struggle, it's been a tough time for me getting qualified the
way I want to here, but that was a good run for us. A .37 would have put us
in the top five in practice times this morning, so I hope it holds up to be
a good time. We ran a .60 in practice and I was real loose when I ran that,
so I said to the guys let's put a couple extra pounds of air pressure in the
right-front to try to fix it. We did that and it made the car a lot, lot
better, so it was the right move on the guy's part. I underestimated how
good it was gonna be and, honestly, I was a little lazy on the throttle in
one and two, but I tried to make it up in three and four. I had a really
good three and four and left a little on the table in one and two, but that
was better than what we've been practicing."

JEREMY MAYFIELD --12-- Mobil 1 Taurus"That was a great lap. I'm just
really proud of this team. We've been through a lot and just keep coming
right back. It shows you how tough this team really is. The last two weeks
haven't been what we wanted, but we all pulled together and fought hard this
week and here we are." THIS TRACK IS SUPPOSED TO BE TOO TOUGH TO TAME?
"Well, this team must be too tough to tame because this is a great race
team. All the guys in the engine shop, I'm just really proud. We've been
through a lot, especially the last four or five weeks -- all of us -- but we
keep coming back and I'm proud of that." YOU ALWAYS SEEM TO PERFORM SO WELL
HERE? "I don't know. Our qualifying efforts haven't been that good.
We've been close, just kind of qualify 11th or 20th -- something like that
-- but we always race good. This time we just came back and really paid
attention to what we needed to do."

MARK MARTIN --6-- Valvoline TaurusHOW WAS THAT FROM PRACTICE? "It was
three-tenths and it looks like we needed to gain some more than that, but
the car was awesome in practice, it was awesome on that lap. The Valvoline
team has done a great job. This car, we tested with and tested well. The
track is real fast right now. We're not gonna wind up there, but it'll
probably be a top 10 though. I think we can contend for this thing Sunday,
I really feel good about our race setup and I'm looking forward to this
weekend. I thought we had a great run at Bristol -- qualifying and race --
and I think we're gonna have the same here."

NOT A BAD DAY WITH THE BUSCH
POLE AND THIS RUN. "Well, that's just a fast car (the Busch car). I'd do
it over here too, if I could get my car to go that fast. I don't know what
that car is so fast, but it usually is and that makes it easy for me to
drive. I'm pleased. We've had a good day -- a good day with the Busch car
and a great day with the Winston Cup car. I really believe that we'll race
good this weekend."

WAS IT A PERFECT LAP IN THE BUSCH CAR? "No, it was
junk. I was not any good at all, but it was two-tenths faster than anybody.
I don't know why. I really didn't think it would be anywhere close to the
pole because the car has felt horrible the whole time here and it doesn't
feel good in race setup either, but evidently it's probably gonna be as fast
like that too. I need a faster steering box on there or something because
it wore me out in practice."

SCOTT PRUETT --32-- Tide Taurus"The Tide car ran really good. In fact,
both the Tide Cup car and the McDonald's Busch car were fast off the truck.
We qualified seventh in Busch and hopefully we can stay in the top 10. That
was all I had for turns one and two, in three and four I left something on
the table but the guys did a terrific job. My first race here, one, I
didn't make the race and I ran last every session so we've made a huge step
as a team."

IT'S LIKE NIGHT AND DAY FROM YOUR FIRST TRIP HERE. "It's just
racing, just going out and racing. Everything is coming together. We're
coming back here with a car we know, we're coming back here with a driver
who is giving a little bit better feedback and knowing what he wants out of
the car and what line to run. Everything is really starting to gel and come
together. We're making good downforce with the car. The Taurus has shown
good downforce with good drag numbers and it's showing when you come to
these faster tracks, so we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing. I'm
proud of the team. We have our hiccups, but generally as a rule our
learning curve is still vertical. Every race we go to, every test we do,
every mile I get is helping us out."

ELLIOTT SADLER --21-- Citgo Taurus"I got loose in two. That's probably
the worst lap I've ever drove in my life here at Darlington. I had a good
race car and I had a good lap going until I got into two and just tried to
cut it down the hill too quick and I'm smarter than that. Then I just
messed up my concentration through three and four, so I took a fifth-place
car and we'll probably qualify 25th or 26th with it, but we think this thing
is gonna race good so we'll have to look forward to Sunday."

THE GOOD NEWS
IS YOU'VE GOT 500 MILES TO GET TO THE FRONT. "Yeah, 500 miles here if
you've got a good race car you can pass a lot of people so we're just gonna
have to try to get through the first couple of laps. They've had some
wrecks here in the past on the first couple of laps, so if we can get
through that we'll be in good shape."

RICKY RUDD --28-- Texaco Havoline Taurus"We were fifth-quick in practice
and we picked up a little bit, but everyone else picked up a bunch. Usually
at Darlington what I have in practice is what I have, I don't hold nothing
back. I think a lot of people sneak up on it here. We ran about what we
ran in practice, a little bit quicker, but we needed to pick up another
tenth or two." DOES A LATE DRAW HURT HERE WITH AS SLICK AS THE TRACK GETS?
"I think the draw was pretty even for everybody. My car was really good in
one and two, but for some reason it pushed really bad in three and four and
lost all of our speed at that end of the track."

STACY COMPTON --9-- Kodiak/Cougar TaurusA TOUGH DAY TO SAY THE LEAST.
"Well, that would have been a good lap. Hat's off to the guys with this
Kodiak Melling team, they worked their butts off to get this car out there.
The crew chief (Jerry Pitts) told me he said, 'You've got to stand on it.
You've gotta go.' We smoked one and two and got to three and four and it
just got loose. I decided I was gonna try not to hit anything this time, so
luckily we didn't hit anything. We've got a car we can work on for tomorrow
and we've got a good car. We've got to get in the show. They've worked
awful hard to make sure we had a shot at it and we're just gonna try to get
it in. We'll get it in tomorrow." WHAT HAPPENED IN PRACTICE? "I'm not
sure. I'm not sure whether we cut a tire or I might have just got in there
and lost it. We hadn't been loose all day and I got in three and it got out
from under me and backed in and then turned around and slapped the front
too. I hate it because I think we were pretty decent."

MATT KENSETH --17-- DeWalt Tools Taurus "It was better than we've been
running. I mean, that isn't nearly good enough but it's better than we ran
all morning. We picked up a little under three-tenths from what we
practiced so I guess you've gotta be happy with that, but we needed seven
(tenths)."

BRETT BODINE --11-- Ralphs Supermarkets Taurus WHY ARE YOU GUYS LAUGHING
SO HARD? "We're laughing because I've had my head up my butt all day. We
unloaded really good and then we just did some stupid things and I lost
confidence in the car and I got a bad attitude. This place aggravates you.
I love this place, but we just made some bad decisions. We should be better
than this, but we'll take it if we're first round." ALL OF THAT AGGRESSION
DIDN'T WORK ITS WAY OUT AT BRISTOL? "It's not that, I guess there are times
where we're overachieving and our expectations of ourselves get higher than
we can probably fulfill and when that happens you set yourself up for
disappointment and disappointment leads to aggression in the wrong area.
That's what we're faced with. We want to do so good and sometimes we're not
realistic about what our potential really is."

JIMMY SPENCER --26-- Big Kmart Taurus"That's probably as good as we've
qualified at Darlington in a long time. When we unloaded we were pretty
good. We made some adjustments. The tire is different and it's really,
really loose. We adjusted it (the car) and adjusted it and we still didn't
have it where we needed it. I could not get through three and four like I
needed to, it was a little too free, and it cost us a bunch of speed. But,
man, we're gonna be in the top 15 and that's incredible for us here at
Darlington in the Kmart car."

JEREMY MAYFIELD PRESS CONFERENCEHOW WAS YOUR LAP AND WHAT ABOUT THE WEEKEND? "To start with we were pretty
fast off the truck, but never ran nothing like that. We ran a .40 or
something like that and wasn't sure we could run that fast. We all got in
trailer after the last practice and decided, 'hey, we're here to sit on the
pole and try to do as good as we can,' because the last time we qualified
here was like 22nd or something like that and got in a wreck early. We knew
we had to get good track position, so we gambled a little bit and made some
changes and, evidently, they matched up to the track conditions and had a
good lap."

DO YOU FEEL THIS IS A TRACK YOU RUN WELL ENOUGH TO WIN?
"Darlington has been a place that I probably run better at than any place on
the circuit and I haven't got a win yet. Most of the time, everytime we've
got a chance to win, the rain comes so maybe if the rain stays away we'll be
all right. Pocono has been a place we always run good and, yeah, the wins
have shown up, but this place here hasn't been tough on us. We've always
been there in the top five, just haven't been able to capitalize on the win
and hopefully we'll be able to do that this weekend."

WHAT DO YOU DO TO
MAKE THAT HAPPEN? "Maybe a rain dance or something. We fixed one problem
-- when I pitted on the backstretch that one time. We had a shot to win
with like 30 laps to go we're leading the race and, all of a sudden, we had
to come in for a caution and that put us out behind. But we've eliminated
that problem, now if we eliminate the rain we'll have a good shot at it."

WHAT'S IT LIKE PITTING ON THE BACKSTRETCH? "It's pretty tough and it feel
like and unfair advantage. Winston Cup racing is so competitive and they've
got it so equal in everything but when you pit on the backstretch that's
probably the worst feeling in the world because it's not equal, it's not
fair, and for Winston Cup racing to be like it is, it seems like every track
should be able to let us pit on the frontstretch or whatever. But some of
them aren't big enough so we have to deal with it, but that's definitely not
a good feeling."

HOW WAS THE TRANSITION WITH PIT ROAD? "This is a great place and I always
look forward going to Darlington more than anywhere. They changed pit road
and I think it made it better for everybody and makes it to where you just
want to come here even more because you don't have to worry about pitting on
the backstretch. It took some of the pressure off the drivers anyway to
where we don't have to try to make that one lap exactly perfect everytime."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TIRES? "Goodyear brought a different tire here this
time and you know I'm gonna brag on it. It's an awesome tire. We did the
tire test like a year-and-a-half ago for the tire that we've been running
here and I thought that was an awesome tire and Jeff Burton got to do the
test this time and I thought, 'Man, we're really gonna be in trouble because
he runs good here.' We came here and our car and myself and the track kind
of adapted to the tire, so I think it's definitely gonna be a little bit
slower but the tire wear is gonna be a lot better. I think, hopefully,
you'll see better racing."

WHAT ABOUT THE HIGHS AND LOWS THIS SEASON FOR
YOU? "I wouldn't say a rollercoaster, but I don't think there's a
rollercoaster out there like the steep angles we've been on. We've been up
and down and straight up and straight back down to the bottom. We rode down
the bottom for a while and back up top and way up top and back down. It's
been everywhere, but here it is again. Three, four, five weeks ago, I can't
remember what day it was, but I got hit in the race car with my head and
stuff and that was a low point -- probably the lowest it's ever been in my
career even though all the other stuff that went on. I came back to
Michigan and couldn't wait to get there and thought we were gonna dominate
that race because we about did the first race there and, well, we couldn't
hit our butts there either, so we ran bad and there's another low. We went
to Bristol last week, running decent, and cut a tire down. At the end of
the race I was trying to stay out of trouble and I found trouble -- or it
found me somehow and got in a wreck again. So it's been up and down. Then
to come back to Darlington here waiting for something to happen and I'm
sitting here talking to you guys on the pole. I can keep going all day on
my story for highs and lows, but that's the way it's been. It's made us a
better race team and I feel we're gonna be better in the future because of
that and whenever you go through the hard times it's gonna make the good
times even better for us."

WHAT'S THE MOTIVATION FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR?
"The motivation is to win -- that's what we're here for. We'll let
Earnhardt and Labonte and all them guys worry about the points, we're gonna
worry about winning. It's certainly a lot less pressure, I can tell you
that. When you're in a points race and you're trying to stay in the top 10
or top five, there's a lot of pressure and you have to start cutting back a
little bit and be more conservative. Myself and my race team, we're not
much on conservative and that's probably why we've got all the highs and
lows. We like running hard and running to win and that's what we're gonna
do. We'll let those guys run for the points and the motivation is to get
ready for 2001 -- make a run for the championship and get our race team to
the level we need to be to be a championship contender. I think the
performance is there. We've all seen the 12 car is fast week-in and
week-out, we've just gotta get it consistent and knock some of these lows
out from under us."

TALK ABOUT RUNNING HERE ON LABOR DAY AND THE TRADITION.
"I think Darlington speaks for itself. You look back and see who all has
won races here, especially the Southern 500s and there are a lot of great
race car drivers. Cale Yarborough, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt and the
list goes on. I can remember driving for Cale and he helped me probably
more than anyone here and he said, 'If you win the Southern 500, you can win
anywhere.' He won a bunch of them and so did David Pearson, so that
tradition alone speaks for itself and if I could win here it would mean more
to me probably than any race I've ever won."

THOUGHTS WITH TWO OR THREE
CARS TO GO IN QUALIFYING. "It's hard to realize how important it is here.
This place is so tough and the reputation is too tough to tame. Drivers
have pretty big egos, we like to walk around saying we tamed the one too
tough to tame sometimes, but to win anything here is important and means a
lot."

WAS THERE ANY TREPIDATION GETTING BACK IN THE CAR AFTER YOUR ACCIDENT? "I
think it was. Like I said, that was probably the toughest part of my whole
career. You think it's hard getting here and then when you get here it's
even tougher and when you go through something like that knowing everything
you've dreamed for and everything you've accomplished in your career and
about the time we've got the 12 car where it needed to be -- running good
week-in and week-out -- then I get hurt. I'm sitting out for two weeks.
First of all, I never had a headache, never got dizzy or nothing so I think
I'm OK and everything is fine. The doctor is saying, 'Man, you better not
race,' and all this stuff and you start thinking about a lot of stuff. You
hear Terry Labonte stories, you know Terry was getting dizzy and a lot of
stuff was happening to him and it made me stop and realize and think about
what was going on. That two weeks seemed like two years to me and when I
did get back in the car at Michigan I wasn't sure what was gonna happen. It
was probably the most nervous I've ever been in my career. I kind of takes
your confidence and pushes it back down two or three levels and I felt like
at that point, before I got hurt, my confidence was higher than it's ever
been and then when I got back in the car at Michigan I felt like I was
starting all over again. That's why it's important for me to come here and
after qualifying well at Michigan and Bristol and to come here and sit on
the pole, it's boosted my confidence back up where I think it needs to be,
but it's definitely a scary moment for you."